A 'Fresher Experience
by TheOneAndOnlySlayer
Summary: Hours after The Force Awakens, Rey is given a moment to process everything. She's never had a real shower before. Somewhere across the galaxy, Kylo Ren somehow hasn't either.


A 'Fresher Experience

By TheOneAndOnlySlayer

Note: this scene takes place after Rey returns with the Falcon and an Injured Finn to the Resistance after Starkiller's destruction.

Finn had been rushed into a medical bay as soon as Rey and Chewie carried him out of the Falcon. Everything – everything – had caught up with her suddenly. By the time she relayed what had happened to General Organa in private, she had wept so much that she felt dried out.

She was taken to see Finn as soon as he was in recovery. The medics said he wouldn't be waking up any time soon.

There was a man in an orange pilot's jumpsuit standing close by. They had locked gazes, and Rey hadn't been prepared for how friendly and bright his whole face looked.

She, on the other hand, was a mess. Patches of moisture from the white stuff in the forest had made her clothes and skin damp, and very cold. Her face was covered in sweat, cold water and tears.

The nurses had stepped in and said they would page them when Finn woke up. They should take care of themselves, now.

The man – Poe Dameron, he introduced himself – put a gentle hand on her shoulder and asked her if she needed anything. But Rey had gone on autopilot and simply followed him.

Rey surveyed the alcove in the small room Poe led her to, with the counter, toilet and –

"Is that a…" she didn't want to sound stupid if she was wrong, so instead asked, "What is this?"

Poe's handsome dark eyes widened. "You mean you've never seen a fresher before?"

Rey's eyes darted away. "Not when there's never enough water for…you know." Her cheeks burned from embarrassment. Suddenly she looked down at herself, her sweat- and grease-stained rags. Her hair hadn't been taken out of its knots in weeks, and it had been starting to itch. It always did when it became exposed to just a little water, but that probably came from the white stuff all over that Starkiller base. Then a spare moment of realization dawned on her: was that water, too?

Poe's voice broke through. "Look, let me show you how to use this thing. Don't worry about how much you wanna use, the water gets recycled to get clean again." He pointed to a few nozzles for and a main switch to filter the water. The nozzles, he explained, were for temperature and density.

"Try to use both at the same time, because one can get either really hot, and this one – " he leaned forward a little too closely, close enough that Rey prayed he had a poor sense of smell. "-Can get cold as balls."

She snorted. "Can't be too cold from that white planet back there. All that white stuff."

"You mean the snow?" he corrected her gently.

Rey bit her tongue. "Right."

To her surprise, he smiled even wider, like he was sharing a secret with her. "Don't worry, to some people, snow loses its charm real fast. I bet there's plenty of people who would love to spend at least a day out in Jakku's heat."

Jakku. Even the word managed to bring out some warmth deep from her bones and over her numb skin. The sweat she had endured ever since escaping Starkiller, the fight with that dark Sith, no longer felt like a cold film.

"Um," said Poe, looking around for some small bottles and a green-gray square. "Soap for your hair. Bet all the girls like this stuff. And this is for everywhere else. You'll feel like a million credits afterwards."

Rey took the offered items and watched as Poe took out a large, fluffy cloth and began to mutter something about clothes. Abashed at how much care he was giving her, when she hadn't even met him before, Rey tried to think of a way to say thank you…not that she was in a position to offer him anything in return, damn it.

He left her in the room with a promise to find her something that would fit. Alone now, Rey turned back to the fresher with more scrutiny. Could water really pour out of there by the bucketful per second? Unbelievable.

She once had dreams (a memory perhaps) of water moving all around her once. She was submerged in it, the coolness of it a caress as she floated somehow. The smell of it in this world permeated the improvised base, to where Rey's lungs felt coated in it. The temperature must be affected somehow.

With still-cold hands she stripped down to her undergarments and turned the water on. In a sudden burst the clear liquid leapt out of the nozzle at the top. Rey jumped, stopping herself from ducking her head it with her mouth gaped open. _Water!_ Her mind cried out. _Get, it, get it now!_

Adjusting the temperature proved to be a test of her patience. Poe said the water was recycled, so it didn't matter as the precious commodity swirled down a drain. She tried for warm to reclaim a sense of home. Sand had to be shaken out of her boots, her clothes and probably her hair.

Rey bit back a shiver as she peeled off her undergarments. She stepped inside, not believing she could be exposed to so much clear, clean warmth. Instantly she felt drained from exhaustion. The hot water seemed to pull it out of her tired frame. She stood there, slack and open-mouthed, tilting her head back and shaking out her matted mane.

Never had she felt more relaxed or massaged out of her worries in her whole life. This hardly compared to the last time she had really bathed herself. It was an extra ration of water she was allowed to bring home, and a woman had traded to her a dried-out sudstone. She couldn't exactly place the smell of it back them, other than a clean sunny heat that probably compared to the clouds above, but she had hand-washed herself limb by limb, too conscientious to be caught naked by some passing traveler or kriffin' raider.

This was almost foolhardy. Her scavenger mind howled at how careless she soaked up the water into her parched, awaiting pores.

And suddenly she wasn't clean enough. Her hair soaked, she opened up one of the bottles and vigorously rubbed and scratched at her head. Hopefully no sand or fleas would fall out.

The smell was intoxicating. Rey took in a large inhale and felt swept into a sweet high. It smelled what she imagined daintier flowers than desert bleils would, utterly fragrant and pure.

She stretched her legs and arms, thankful for this small but meaningful gift. If she wasn't so self-preserving, she would have planned to kiss Poe Dameron the second she got out of the fresher.

Light-years away, lying on a cold obsidian floor, Rey's burning, madly jealous foe felt her through the Force.

Kylo Ren almost opened his eyes, but recoiled in pain when he realized his newly-minted scar, running down one eye and bruised sockets protested. It was a moment of weakness on his part. He had blacked out, possibly, just after Snoke had doled out his punishment for failing to bring – her – to him.

And of course, the crippling loss of Starkiller base.

"How many years has it taken to build that base?" Snoke had asked, calmly in a way that had immediately alerted Ren.

Ren was not alone. Normally he despised sharing the glory of an audience with the Supreme Leader, but over such a humiliating, unforgivable defeat, he had hoped that Hux's boastful, snide attitude would absorb Snoke's rage.

Ren, compared to the red-haired general, knew when to keep his mouth shut. In his master's presence his silence was often uncompromised, awaiting orders or simply acting as a receptor to Snoke's deep reservoir of hate and darkness.

Now, though, he had sensed danger.

He could not avoid it, could not run from it. Unlike Hux, who knew no humility even in front of their master, Ren knew he had to stand by and take it.

"How many years has it taken to plan our home base? The crown jewel of our reign in its first few hours," Snoke had growled, like a tidal wave rising ever higher, only to crash onto them both –

No. Not them. Just him.

Ren could hardly contain his horror and self-disgust as force-lightning forced him flying back. He held in a gasp of pain, biting his tongue until salt-thick blood warmed his mouth.

"All forsaken – all turned to dust in space -"

Ren would not grovel. He would not crawl away in some foolish attempt to escape. He would lie there, belly-up like the loyal beast he was, and take every shock, every bone-break, every gash until he could swallow a plea for death.

Such is the way of the Sith.

"All for the sake of a girl?! You wretched fool!"

Ren only had time to relax his jaw when the lightning erupted from Snoke's spindly fingers. He had learned by now that if he ground his teeth or seized any part of his muscles, the pain would double.

He was not afraid of pain. Pain had shaped him. But there was something else, something that crackled.

 _Is that a…what is this?_

Electric currents charged mindlessly into his brain, his bones and his organs. Kylo heard her voice – HER voice. The girl who had gotten away.

He did something he didn't expect to do. He held fast to the echo of her. Not to search for her. He was barely able to endure Snoke's punishment. But in a quiet, deep recess of his mind, he opened up the channel from the Force, steeled himself, and peered –

Oh.

 _Ohhh._

Another storm of anger overtook his body. Wounds that had benefitted from basic medical care en route to Snoke now ripped back open. But Kylo did not feel this. He felt something else entirely.

Relaxation. Relief. _Joy_.

Kylo felt everything. He did not hesitate. Later he would blame it on curiosity about the enemy.

Hot water soothed down his shoulders as it did hers. Like he was taking in all the heat from a sun, Kylo remained motionless as the penetrating warmth wrapped him in pseudo-security. Water sluiced down her (their) skin and drenched her (them) into some kind of paradise. His eyes were closed but he breathed in what he thought was steam and a burst of simple, fragrant soap.

Kylo could have sneered in mock-pity if he wasn't drowning in such – such –

 _Gentleness_ , a part of him supplied; the quieter, more restrained part that still dreamt of the Light. He would not be swayed by this new temptation.

Of course he had used a 'fresher before, he wasn't uncivilized. She, however – her threadbare, rough-spun rags and the coincidental disaster from Jakku made it clear that was her origin. Her wild, short-tempered attitude and scrappy physique demonstrated how sorely lacking she was in _everything_.

The way her borrowed mind felt half-drugged, half-excited inside of the 'fresher intrigued Kylo himself. Almost to the point where he couldn't smell his singed flesh and clothes.

 _I've never had this much water on me before_ , she thought in his head, marveling at the first-time luxury. He even sensed her thirst, always present, always wanting, kicking in and demanding she open her mouth and let the water pour into her, trickling into her nose and tickling her eyelids just a little.

 _Desert creature_ , thought Kylo to himself as he greedily sought to pocket way the moment for further intake. He couldn't lose his control, not now. It felt wrong, almost inappropriate how he had opened his mind so much to her, that damned siren, while in the presence of his master.

He desperately managed to stopper it, seize the connection and bottle what he had. Bury it deep enough where Snoke couldn't find it.

When he recovered in his rooms, alone, he would take it out again.


End file.
